News, notes & thoughts from the owner of one of NJ's finest quilt shops, Quilting Possibilities located in Forked River. www.quiltingpossibilities.net

Flip Flops

Quilting Possibilities

one of NJ's finest quilt shops

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Emergency!

A couple of weeks ago we were heading home from the middle son's new house in PA. I made sure Jim was heading east and then I promptly fell asleep - we've taken some interesting detours when I fall asleep too soon! Sara and Nathan were sleeping in the backseat.

I woke up about the time we hit the exit for Rt 1 that heads towards Philly. It was about 8:30 and dark. Jim and I were remarking on how gorgeous the full moon was as we tooled along the PA Turnpike heading for the bridge to take us back into NJ. We passed a trailer truck and I thought the noise we were hearing was him using his engine brakes for some reason but after we'd passed him and the noise got louder, we decided we needed to pull over.

Of course we'd passed into the middle of nowhere and are now trying to see the tires in the pitch black. Sure enough, we discovered pretty quickly that the rear driver's side tire had blown out and we were dang lucky it wasn't a front tire that had done it.

I made Jim move the car up about 50 yards "I don't care if we ruin the rim, I don't want you changing the tire this close to the highway!

Sara timed it, 18 minutes to get all the junk out of the trunk to get to the spare, discover that yes, the emergency kit was not in the trunk, get the tire changed and back on the road. 18 minutes of Jim changing, Sara holding the big flashlight so he could see, me standing 20 yards up the highway swinging a smaller flashlight like a train signalman and Nathan sleeping through the whole thing.

In my very unscientific 18 minute survey, truckers are the most courteous drivers on the road. If they could move over they did, if they couldn't, they at least slowed down some. Cars whizzed by us in the passenger lane even though the passing lane was empty - how inconsiderate can you be???? MOVE OVER!

18 VERY LONG minutes later, we were back in the car with the doughnut tire on. Yes, all three of us have Triple A but Jim was right, he could change it before they could get to us. If it had been just Sara and I, Triple A would have been the way to go and I'd have stressed that we had an infant in the car when I called.

Halfway home from there, we pulled into a WAWA and discovered the doughnut spare was almost flat . . . .

Moral of this story? PUT AN EMERGENCY KIT IN YOUR TRUNK AND LEAVE IT THERE! And look at your spare tire every once in awhile. We've decided we never looked at ours in the 10 years we've had the car and we we're dang lucky it hadn't dry rotted.

For Christmas all my kids are getting the orange glow in the dark triangles and they'd better keep them in their trunks, right next to their emergency kits.

1 comment:

katie m
said...

Hi Deb We were driving thru Penn ( right over the Ny border) and hit a pothole at 3 in the morning lucky for me I had my son-in-law with me and he changed the flat we drove to Tn on the donut! Praying the whole way! Do you believe it! Well the next trip the exact same thing happen and we drove home on the same donut! But I will definitely check that donut before we get in the car again!